


Ray of Light

by Fenix21



Series: In My Silence 'Verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, boys being sweet together, mute!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Sam has never spoken, but that doesn't mean Dean can't hear him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ray of Light

May 1997

 

There was sunshine today and the temperatures were even civilized enough that Dean could take his shirt off without freezing. 

John had dumped them in upstate Washington after the last incident with Sammy nearly three months ago, in a place where the sun made an appearance on some loosely constructed bi-weekly schedule and it rained for at least ten minutes almost every day.  Dean was, quite frankly, _done_ with the damp and mud and fog clinging to him every time he stepped outside. 

So this welcome break in the pattern called for a celebration, which didn't involve much beyond pulling Sam from school for the day and hiking up into the hills with a six pack and a bag of sandwiches to find a dry, sunny patch of grass where the two of them could lay out shirtless and soak in some vitamin K, because the kid was looking more pale than normal lately and had lost even the ubiquitous ruddiness in his complexion.

Dean reached a hand out and braceleted Sam's ankle with his fingers, rubbing his thumb against the bone. Sam wiggled his toes in response. 

'You doin' okay, Sammy? Still warm enough?'

Sam reached out to mirror Dean's touch.

Absolutely. This is wonderful...

Dean smiled and pulled at Sam's ankle until he had his foot square in the center of his chest. He started rubbing at the ball with his thumbs, and then down to the arch in long strokes that made Sam's toes curl. He tried to tug his foot away but Dean held him fast.

'You got beautiful feet, Sam. You know that?' He laughed when Sam smacked his thigh. 'No, really, just look at these long toes of yours?' Dean wiggled each toe individually, holding tight to Sam's ankle as he tried to squirm free, until he got to his pinky toes. He stopped and frowned. 'You've got blisters, Sam.'

Flex of fingers against his own ankle.

No big deal.

'You need new shoes kiddo?' Dean asked. 'Why didn't you say something?'

Soft scratch of blunt nails against his skin.

When do I ever?

Dean sighed and relinquished Sam's foot, rolling over onto his stomach. It wasn't what Sam had meant, but all Dean heard was his own misstep in what he'd said. 

Because Sam didn't talk. Not ever. Never had. Not in anything other than touches that Dean had long ago learned to translate into words. He couldn't even remember exactly when it had started, but he did remember how. He remembered how Sam would sit astride his back when he was three or four, while Dean did his homework or read through the obituaries for John, just about the time they were really starting to worry that Sam hadn't spoken yet, and he would draw in the space between Dean's shoulder blades. It had taken Dean a while to figure it out. To make shapes out of the random touches, and then for that to translate into anything close to language. 

When they figured it out, Sam started drawing other places: on the back of Dean's hand, in his palm, on his thigh, on his stomach. He never wrote words, even after he learned to read and write, the shapes never became words, and it wasn't long before Dean was hearing Sam's voice in his head—or how he imagined Sam's voice would sound—speaking to him through nothing more than a brush of fingertips or a twitch in his expression. 

Dean?

Sam had rolled up onto his knees, hand resting on the back of Dean's thigh. 

'It's okay, Sam. It's fine. I just...'

Dean fell silent, and Sam moved quick and easy, slinging a leg over Dean's backside and straddling him just like he used to do. He leaned forward and pressed his palms into the small of Dean's back. They were warm from the sun. 

It's not fine. I'm sorry.

'You don't have anything to be sorry about,' Dean said.

Sam crawled his fingers up the sides of Dean's spine, slow, feeling each vertebrae as he went.

I do. I know this is hard on you, and I'm sorry for it.

Dean buried his face in the crook of his arm, telling himself the sun was too bright for his eyes, when it wasn't the bright light at all that was making them water.

'Sammy, can't you just...just talk to _me_?' Dean's voice was muffled and a little cracked and Sam paused to press a long kiss to his spine. Another apology. 'I wouldn't tell. You know I wouldn't. You don't have to talk to anyone else. Just. Me. Can't you do that? Please?'

Sam pressed the tips of his fingers hard into Dean's back, bearing down with his weight for a second before he collapsed on top of him and laced his arms in under Dean's shoulders and pressed his cheek between his shoulder blades.

If I could, you _know_ I would. I would do that for you.

Dean pressed his face harder into his arm, fisted the blanket under him. 'Do you know what it's like, Sammy? To hear you in here, in my head? But to not hear _you_? I don't—I don't even know if it is you. If I'm just making it all up, or if I'm only telling myself what I want to hear.'

Sam squeezed him hard and huffed a breath against his skin.

You couldn't make this shit up, Dean.

Dean gave a strangled laugh and lifted his head, looking back over his shoulder at Sam who smiled up at him with a kind of sincerity in his eyes that nearly cracked Dean wide open right there. He gulped a breath.

'No, you're probably right. I couldn't.'

Sam's face split into a grin and he sat back up. Dean lay quite beneath him while Sam's fingers trailed across his skin, warm and light, doodling on his back like he had done so many years ago in the beginning. 

It took Dean a little while to recognize the pattern in the touches because it had been so long, but there were...words.

Brother.

Protector.

Friend.

...I love you.

Dean sucked his lip between his teeth and bit down, body going tense. Sam sat above him, still now, palms flat over his shoulders. It took Dean several heartbeats and just as many shaky breaths before he could trust himself to get any words out, even in the broken whisper that delivered them,

'Love you, too, Sammy. Love you, too.'


End file.
